


Of being pulled apart

by FrozenBrownie



Series: My hands in yours [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus in pain, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Idiots in Love, M/M, Ministry restraints, They're both manipulative in their own way and they know it, hurt albus, minor child character death that starts it all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenBrownie/pseuds/FrozenBrownie
Summary: A world already on its head stopped turning when a boy of thirteen years, a student of Hogwarts, died in Albus Dumbledore’s arms. What impact this unnecessary death of a child (again) would have on him, on England, on Hogwarts, neither the watching centaurs nor that desperate wizard with his wrists in unconnected metal chains could have foreseen. There was a man, of course, who did, roused in his sleep from the agitation of his husband over a thousand miles away. And thus, a story different from the one that could have come to pass began.





	Of being pulled apart

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first ever English fanfiction! I've got nine years of writing German fiction under my belt, English is my second language (mother tongue-ish, bilangual-ish, it's complicated^TM) and I fell head over heels for those two idiots. Albus and Gellert have such a complicated, tragically beautiful relationship that when this plotbunny bit me, I couldn't resist. Thank you so much to Nacho, ([bloodbetrothed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinitySoldier/pseuds/bloodbetrothed)), a very dear friend of mine who beta-read this pain fest, I absolutely adore you, your writing and your golden heart. Without further ado: Let's dive in!  
> (Come say hi on Tumblr: [dreamingbrownie](https://dreamingbrownie.tumblr.com/))

First, there had been shock at a hastily delivered message of the Gryffindor prefect just before every student should have gone to bed. The almost pearl white blond hair was the first thing that Albus recognized about the boy before the name fell into its place in his memory. He put down his quill, flooded by that feeling which overcomes the human mind before a devastating storm, and listened.  
A student, too young not to be stupid sometimes and certainly to think before acting, had run out the main gates of the castle as if chased by the hounds of hell. Tempted by peers, perhaps, to prove his bravery, or even drenched from head to toe in fear of some kind, at least that was what the anxiously waiting prefect guessed at. Albus wanted to throw something against the far wall.  
“You’ve done well by coming to me first before bothering the Headmaster, but I fear this time it’s inevitable. Would you fetch him for me, Mr. Lykes?”  
“Certainly, Sir”, the boy replied and was off as quick as lightning. Oh, if only Albus would have been able to achieve such speed, even the simplest of magic not restrained by the heavy bands at his wrists… It wasn’t enough. Every pounding step, flying far over stone first, then grass, made slippery by autumn’s foggy chill, echoed into his panicked head. The student in question was already beyond the eye’s reach, a troublesome small boy of light brown hair and a build too lithe for his age who would not survive on his own in the forbidden forest for any prolonged time. It was forbidden for a reason, Morgana be damned, and only properly passable beyond the edges on a broom (or a carpet, but that poor thing never saw the light of Hogwarts’ grand outskirts again afterwards, that one time.) Albus ran as fast as his treacherous stumbling feet allowed it and shouted the name of that unsuspecting, tempted boy at the top of his lungs, but still, it wasn’t enough.

He held him while he died, a Streeler of a (at the moment) bright turquoise colour lay flung away a few feet from them by an outburst of utterly uncontrolled magic on Albus’ account. Darkness enveloped them as if meaning to put them both to sleep, and sleep he wanted to, hadn’t been able to do properly since that disaster in Paris. Kyle Morson was still propped up against his left shoulder, becoming colder by the minute, already half unconscious due to the poison on his skin when Albus had found him. He must have slipped on the slime that burned away all vegetation touched by it and fallen directly onto the highly toxic snail. There were faces looming in the dark all around them (him, him alone, Kyle was as dead now as Ariana), neither moving closer nor fading back into the night. Branches broke under hooves, an owl hooted softly somewhere not too far away, flapped, rose, was gone.  
“We have seen this.” Centaurs. Bloody centaurs, Seers, all of them, children of the stars, worthy, and still-  
“You could have saved him! What are you standing there, keeping your hands still? I wasn’t fast enough – you could have-“ Albus heaved a broken intake of air and curled up in himself, Kyle Morson so very still in his arms and no force of nature could have removed him thus. One of the centaurs, a very young one judged by his looks with the blackest waterfall of hair that Albus had ever seen and the matching horse half, stepped nearer. The others remained in their quiet circle.  
“What we are able to and what we are allowed to do are two very different things, Albus Dumbledore. This foal had to ascend to the stars so that you can make your decision.” He didn’t even had to bow his strangely rough features down to the kneeling Albus to get his meaning across. Hidden and huddled as his words might be, a man just at the edges of this supposedly peaceful world had once talked similarly when coming out of the trance-like state of an unwanted vision. Albus wanted to break down where he knelt and egoistically wait until someone, anyone found him, the dead student in his arms, he himself half frozen to death because he couldn’t even cast a damned warming charm thanks to the Ministry’s restraints that hadn’t been lifted yet. Nobody wanted to set such a dangerously powerful and decidedly uncertain man free again without a promise, no, a vow to obey and serve Magical Great Britain only.  
“Are you saying”, he rasped more angry at himself than at the Aurors who prevented him from doing anything at all, “that you let a boy of thirteen winters die because of one interpretation of the planets’ alignment?” His head raised, staring so threateningly at the only centaur willing to speak to a human being, it seemed, the latter took a guarded step back. The forest’s bed swallowed all noises, thus filled with hushed, eerie promises of hidden life that never left the groping trees’ fingers. How the centaurs were able to live utterly undisturbed in these woods, Albus would never understand in all his lifetime, he thought. They recoiled now from his anger, seething off his very skin because the magic within him had no other means of getting out. A hand full gave in to instinct and galloped away, causing a deafening thunder of hooves on the soft dead forest’s bed that vibrated into Albus’ shuddering bones. In the end, only the one brave centaur whose name he didn’t bother to ask as of now remained, but spoke no more, instead giving him a meaningful look that knew more of the universe than immediate reality.

Which was, as it dawned on Albus, sitting alone there in the dark without a soul knowing where to search for him and Kyle Morson, a one way road. He hadn’t been fast enough to save a student’s life in such difficult times for Hogwarts because of Gellert’s – of Grindelwald’s schemes on the continent. The Ministry was searching for reasons to force Albus’ hand already, it had been the very cause of their monumentally offensive decision to put him under monitoring and restriction of his magic after all. Dead, they lay on his wrists, neither hot nor cold, warmed up to his body temperature which was sinking by the minute. The forest seemed to suck all life out of him, and even though he knew that such an assumption was horse dung and nothing more, he had to get out of here. Fast. Kyle was getting stiff in his arms, stiff and chilled like a broken doll with the disorderly hair to match the look. Nothing else was left to Albus than laying him down, wrenching him from his own arms like tearing a limb off, holding back his tears for later. He had to think. He had to act. With his wand near useless in his pocket, all distress calls were out of the question, and thus he could do nothing but send the blue hue of his core wandlessly through his fingertips in the direction of the glowing castle that had become his home long ago. Nobody could do anything for Kyle anymore, but his parents deserved to bury his body, and due to that thin trace, somebody would find him eventually. And when that hour struck, Albus was long gone.

The silver pendant resting over his heart, protected by his grey silk vest, led the way that he followed. Giving in felt like the easiest thing he had ever done, and at the same time, each step in the right direction was one carrying him closer to his doom. There was only one man under the moon who could free him from his chains, and only without them could he protect his students properly once more. As soon as word got out that he had been sent to save the boy now dead, gone in great pain, more threats would haunt Hogwarts without a single doubt. People who didn’t consider themselves evil or even morally questionable wanted Albus removed from his position as next headmaster in line, and what better means existed than to kick him from his solid throne up in his high tower than to make him fail again?  
No, he had to get away. However long it would take, in whichever pain he would be at the end – and his wrists started losing all blood due to the pressure of staying on Hogwarts’ grounds already – nothing and nobody was allowed to stop him. Anger burned deep within him, thorns turned into his own flesh. His fault. His fault alone. Had he acted earlier, had he pledged alliance to the Ministry, however sincere -  
Twigs, branches, long shadowy fingers of sleeping trees without leaves kept getting into his way, clothing soon stained if not beyond magical repair becoming a testament to his haste to get out of this forsaken forest. The staccato noises of small feet made him turn around time and time again, the grip on his wand was painfully tight even if he had to fight the heavy damping on his magic if it truly came to it. What choice had he but to stay alive long enough to pay back the sins of his early youth, and now, the ones that he was about to commit anew?  
“Take me to Edinburgh”, he whispered to the tiny boat waiting at the river that abruptly broke the forest’s hold on Scottish soil at sunrise, exhausted, and all but fell over trying to keep upright.

From Edinburgh he went, wrapped in his purple cloak as one would do with a blanket, and didn’t pay attention to its dirty and somewhat torn state. He intended to get to London on a steamer, however great the risk; he had to take some money from Gringotts with him if he wanted to follow the pull of the pendant to the continent and further south. The waves near the coast line made him almost ill, but the great strain on his body and mind played their part in it, too, no doubt. He never had had a problem with the high seas, at least, and he willed his clenching stomach not to start with such nonsense now. The North Sea was beautiful even in autumn, inky blue blending into bottle green and the darkest black imaginable, crowned white by foam where the wind tore into the waves. Albus, however, found himself incapable of enjoying such impressive beauty. The salt in the air made his auburn hair very dry and crisp, his hands numb with the cold and only freed his lungs of the terrible stench under deck. Always leaning on the railing starboard, he kept his eyes trained on the coast and prayed to whichever deity might listen that he would stay unbothered, unrecognized.  
London came, stinking, crowded, full of burglars, thieves and ill-concealed wizards. Albus forced himself to keep his head down, never look up unless necessary and to resist the wish to see Newt Scamander, at least, before he left the British Isles completely. He was no fool, it would maybe take some time until his return; not that he never ventured out into the inviting world, but Gellert Grindelwald wasn’t an easy man to find and an even harder one to convince of anything at all. And having a friend who knew where to look for Albus in return would have put his mind at rest, but he couldn’t afford such searches without his magic to aid him. And who could guarantee that Newt was staying in London, or in Britain to begin with?

Feeling very small, Albus carried his grief for the dead boy and a much older sense of having failed completely to the Bank of Gringotts, revealing himself to the Goblins only who were answering to no-one and thus not interested in handing him over to the Ministry. The trip to his vault was also one down memory lane as buried there lay many objects, scrolls, books along all the earned gold that he wished never to see again. That summer of 1899 had left an imprint on his soul and his heart alike, but some of the things proving that Albus Dumbledore was just a man after all he could hide away from the public in those depths.  
Of course, the goblin who escorted him got very big eyes indeed when the pendant accidently slipped from its place under three layers of clothing too thin and torn.  
“Is that a blood troth?”  
Hastily, Albus tucked it back where it belonged; over his heart, not out in the open. Snatching a thick black travelling cloak, a fresh white shirt with old buttons and an older cut, even, alongside a crimson vest that was too tight for him nowadays, he doubled back on his feet and stalked out without another glance.  
“It is, master Goblin, and I would very much appreciate your silence about its existence entirely.” An ugly grin manifested on the goblin’s face, showing a mouth full of pointy teeth. His eyes were tiny and black as midnight.  
“Such silence has to be earned.”  
“Such silence”, Albus repeated very swiftly, “is a matter of honour, master Goblin. Whom I am betrothed to is none of the Goblins’ business, with all respects payed. I would like to ascend back to the surface now, please.” The goblin bowed deeply, refused to give his name on the entire journey back and kept glancing at Albus who couldn’t bring himself to let the vial unchecked. Time and time again he stroked the bump in the fabric of his ruined vest and somehow managed to at least change his cloak while in that terrible cart. They rushed through Gringotts’ depths worthy of a dragon’s den and finished the unmeasurable distance with its many twists and turns in a matter of minutes.

To get out of London, Albus found, had seldom felt so liberating.

His heart led him through half of Germany, once he had crossed the channel with a strange sense of dread. From west to south-east, he kept to small villages first, not trusting the big cities. He talked to nobody as far as he could manage without human contact, kept his head down and avoided all wizards carefully. The pain that had set in the second he left Hogwarts’ grounds intensified with each mile, but the vial that protected Gellert more than himself burned just as deeply. The two forces pulled him apart at night and tried to hold him back respectively by daylight, urging him to stand still and sink down to the ground. A lesser man would have done so, perhaps, but Albus soldiered on. Bound to solitude, he observed the muggles with a sort of curiosity that he would have hated himself for two decades ago. He passed through Brussels, Cologne, Magdeburg, Dresden, then Prague, subsequently venturing into Czechoslovakia and leaving Germany behind entirely. When he became aware where the pendant was pulling him to on the back of a hay carriage, having resisted the urge to go south instead of east for days now, he let his head fall into his hands and groaned. He could have gone by the bloody Floo Network in London a week ago instead of making his way through the cold and damp terrain of Germany, loosing time, risking exposure. Of course, Gellert would stay at the pearl of Europe: Vienna, city of his heart. Always had been, always would be, as it seemed; he had already waxed poetic about the baroque facades and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s music as a 16 year old boy full of mischief. Such a long time ago…

When the inn-keeper of the little tavern he was staying that night somewhere south of Prague asked him where he was going and he almost smelt the Squib on her, Albus only smiled, folding his cloak neatly in his trembling hands.  
“I haven’t payed Austria a visit in too long. Got friends there, you see”, he answered with too much London rolling from his tongue than natural for him. The following day, he passed through Budweis in fog so thick he could hardly see his own hands, crossed the border surrounded by the monumental Alps and wished for an easy stroll through Prague’s pretty slumber with his husband at his side. Pain free. The hatred for such treacherous thoughts overwhelmed him tenfold when he read the news of some muggles dead by a nebulous underground organization in Vienna. He craned his neck at the papers left lying around in a chemist’s shop some fifty miles east of his destination and quickly retreated when the potion master in question turned up, a scowl on his old face. Neither Dittany nor pain relieving potions could lighten the effects of the chains, still Albus tried to let his own magic flow into the red and partly inflamed skin beneath them every night before falling into some too hard bed with a blanket too thin for the fast approaching winter. It was mid-November in 1929 when Albus finally reached Vienna, a devastation of the economy swept over Europe, driven by a Wallstreet crash at the other side of the world and for once, he couldn’t find a care for it within his soul. He would deal with the fallout in London later, much, much later, maybe before Christmas still, maybe not. Tired, he sunk into Vienna’s golden glow.

Diving into the city of Gellert’s passionate heart truly felt like coming near him for the first time in 30 years. The language was entirely strange to Albus, so much harder than the English vowels, and the people looked just this tiny bit different to prove how very far from Britain he was. His clothes didn’t fit him anymore, too loose on his frame, and his hands felt like they didn’t remember how to swish and flick his wand. The most basic of outbursts he couldn’t suppress, therefore painfully aware of his own potential again. On that lonely evening in the large muggle part of Vienna, surrounded by families, couples, people just as lonesome as himself, the blue sparks dancing from his fingertips wouldn’t cease. No matter how much he willed them away, not wanting to be forced to retreat to the magical Kaiserviertel, they formed loops, rings, tiny flames without heat around his fingers and only made his chains burn more painfully. Had he not concealed his whereabouts so carefully, he would have been tempted to force the next Auror on his traces with pure legilimancy to take the cursed bands off. The point of no return he had long since crossed, of course, and could now only walk aimlessly through the northern part of Vienna with the pendant unsure where to turn next like the needle of a compass spinning round and round at the pole. White houses, adorned with gold and marble veins spoke of times long gone, the street lights shed their sickly green gas light onto the cobblestone and saw Albus’ double shadow wander past. He peered into closed shops, smiled at coats, shawls, gloves on display that looked invitingly warm but were way too expensive for the little money he had brought with him. In another context, Vienna would have made a wonderful holiday destination.  
The feeling of being followed had become a constant companion, which was why he didn’t pay it much attention at first, instead looking into warm salons, small kitchens, rooms blocked from view by heavy curtains. There was life behind those window panes, families, nearly two million souls, hearts, minds, beautifully ordinary in their sheer number. There had to be a genius amongst them. A cold hearted, manipulative genius, but one that maybe could still be saved.

Without knowing it, his feet had carried him much too close to the magical part of Vienna and cold, exhausted, in pain as he was, his reflexes were too slow to react when a heavy something landed on his shoulders. Clinging to his neck, wobbling dangerously and all the while squeaking so profoundly that Albus feared going deaf, it gripped him as if its life depended on him. He only touched a skin too large for the brittle bones beneath in panic before the tight channel of an apparition swallowed him whole.  
It spat him out in a living room so comfortable, he barely had time to appreciate it before he sunk onto the dark green carpet. Coughing, he detached himself of the House Elf that had kidnapped him and was now bowing deeply to him.  
“Ellis has done what master has wanted, British man is safe now, Ellis has taken care of the longnoses that followed him. Ellis will fetch master now, stay here, please, no harm will come to strange British man!” He got a glimpse of large, watery eyes as the elf looked up to him almost pleading despite its brusque words. It hurried out of the room so fast, its short legs stumbled over a set of iron tools for tending to a fire, but kept them upright magically before they could clatter to the floor. “Wait!” it squeaked again and was out of sight.

Albus was too experienced to just assume that Gellert had found him before he could, so he got back up and took his useless wand out of his breast pocket. Keeping it over his heart had seemed more sensible at the time than buying a new holster for his arm or his belt, even, now he was awkwardly aware of his helplessness. For the first time in his life, he could not defend himself at all. Wandless outbursts through his restraints were difficult, mostly random and hurt to the point of screaming. In great panic, he maybe could knock an opponent to his ass, but not without the benefit of surprise on his side. To sum it up: he was doomed. But then, he had set out for Gellert Grindelwald hiding, travelling through dirty back alleys instead of Apparating to London, to Calais, to Vienna in three quick if exhausting jumps. Only the blood troth warming on his skin made him smile for a second, he took it out and held it in his wandless hand, never closing his eyes despite the growing urge to do so. Instead of leaning next to the giant fire place embedded in the wall, he added an inch or two to his height by keeping a proper stance, sheathed his wand into his sleeve as if entirely at ease and held his head up high. To conceal the wrist bands was impossible, but the shadows hid them quite well. When Gellert finally ventured into the room like a man on a mission without his clumsy house elf, clad only in a long white nightshirt and a dressing gown as poisonously green as the carpet over it, he greeted him with a small nod. Their eyes locked, Albus’ fingers twitched. A heartbeat passed.  
“Good evening, Gellert.”  
“Albus”, was the only answer, an incline of his head as acknowledgement, nothing more. He looked as handsome as ever, if older, of course, 30 years of practicing dark magic had taken their toll on his body. His blonde hair shone as white as his magical eye now, a bit retreated already, giving away just a sliver of his forehead. Albus himself, he knew, looked the worse for wear.  
“I’ve come in peace, old friend. Sheathe your wand, I mean no harm.”  
“You used to say that a lot differently”, Gellert bit back, suspicion clearly visible. Oh, how easy it was to read him, his body language, his clear-cut face, his mismatched but undeniably interesting eyes… Albus lowered his head and showed his empty hands, therefore also giving away his terrible secret.  
“I’m sorry to come to you at such late an hour – even if I didn’t have much choice, now, had I, your house elf kidnapped me after all-“  
“On my demand.” Tension rose high as leaking gas, slowly, but surely, and Albus felt already out of his depths. It had always been like this: he, explaining and struggling to express his thoughts, let alone his feelings, all the while covering his nerves with humour, and Gellert seeing right through him. Absolutely nothing had changed.

Slowly, he closed the distance between them, taking each step with a false ease that Newt had taught him for approaching a scared and aggressive predator. That Gellert was scared, he doubted, but the spark of alertness was there, visible in his mesmerizing eyes. Albus stopped when only a sofa separated them and always held his hands where Gellert could see them.  
“So you knew that I was coming to Vienna? I was under the impression of having covered my movements quite thoroughly, and to be entirely honest with you, didn’t know it myself until several days ago.” Eyes narrowing, pose upright but not arrogant, fingers twitching. Their blood troth was pulsing so wildly now on Albus’ chest that he felt like tearing it off and throwing it at Gellert’s feet. It was all too much to bear, his wrists were aflame, his fingertips numb from having his magic confined under his too tight skin. Light banter, he could do all day, if only Merlin or some damned deity allowed him to breathe-

A swish like making a dog step aside and the sofa flew to the opposing wall, leaving absolutely nothing between them. Not once did Gellert blink while approaching him, suddenly he was all too close and still not close enough. Not by a far stretch. Albus clenched his fists and promptly payed the price for it, sharp pain shot through every single nerve in his arms. Like a trapped animal, he threw his travelling cloak to the floor and heaved, trying just not to choke on all of it, getting a whiff of Gellert’s aftershave instead. It dizzied him, made his head swim and his heart beat madly in his chest.  
“They've put you in chains. I have heard of it, of course, but to see it…", his betrothed whispered with a fascination in his deep tenor that sent goose bumps over Albus's bare arms. The cold metal of the restraints dug into his wrists, more painfully with every minute now. Gellert traced the evidence of his shame with feather light touches, a barely visible snarl on his clean shaven face. His fingers came to rest just above those dreaded restraints. “Only I am allowed to do that. I, Your husband. The one you laid an oath upon to never betray, to never turn your back on."  
“I am here now", Albus replied with pain laced into the deeper intonations, as hard as he tried to keep it out, failing. Gellert came to stand a good three feet away from him so abruptly that he shivered. Magic, pure and unchecked danced between his fingertips, bearing forth sparks in a silver hue.  
“They broke you. Piece by piece, wearing you down, laying you, core of my heart, in chains. This is no physical boundary and you know it. They might as well have crowned you with those disgusting bands, therefore enslaving your mind instead of your magic." An intake of breath, a hug so light it might as well have been imagined, simultaneously they exhaled. Sharing air. “The British ministry will die for this, my love."  
“Then I will, too", Albus said softly and raised his wrists just so, catching the mismatched eyes of the only man capable of freeing him. Whatever the price, he was well aware that he might have been marching to his own funeral the second he left Hogwarts behind. But even he, Albus Dumbledore, youngest headmaster-to-be as soon as Dippet succumbed to age, wasn't immune to pain. He lowered his head so not to accidently catch Gellert's intense stare, instead leaning into his embrace. Between them, the blood vial of their first vow clinked against the sign of the Hallows that Gellert didn't even take off for sleeping, as it seemed. Through his thin white nightshirt bled the warmth of his skin, unstopped by four layers of fabric, directly onto Albus' chest. Breathing was a little less hard, giving in so cruelly easy, it should have disgusted him. But when it all came down to it, this was where he belonged, for better or for worse, and his hands were literally bound.  
“I will free you", Gellert murmured into the curve of his neck, placing kisses where ever he went, holding him with a feather light touch as if not to confine him further. Albus shook his head. It wasn't this easy. And still, speaking felt impossible.

A small sound escaped his closed up throat while he cupped Gellert's cheek so gently as if touching porcelain; the colour was the same. They both felt the cool night air, Gellert alight with it, Albus freezing. Those beautiful eyes narrowed and Albus willed him to understand without having to say it. Once linked, it was absolutely unthinkable to break the contact, stop sharing truths nonverbally like casting magic at a sunny river bank in the summer of 1899, wild with it, unchecked, unrestrained. Arrogant and ignorant, but unbroken. In the end, only when Albus closed his eyes against the burning pain on his wrists, Gellert's touch tightened in understanding.  
“You're in pain. Are they torturing you? If so, we don't have time to loose, my dear. Follow me outside, such things are better done where we can break nothing of importance. I am just going to fetch a proper coat for myself. I'll be right back, thirty seconds, love, just hold on a little longer." He was rambling now, Gellert Grindelwald, trembling with something akin to nerves, laced with righteous anger and Albus couldn't stand it. Not for himself. He might have come here with a plea dying on his dry lips, but this, he didn't deserve.  
“It’s me!", he managed to get out before Gellert could vanish through that doorway, thus turning him around without a forceful touch. “Me leaving Hogwarts two weeks ago started the torture inflicted on myself. It's punishment, of sorts." Inhale, exhale, he closed his eyes. “I lost a student, Gellert. A boy. Thirteen years old, young enough to venture into the forbidden forest unafraid on his own. I couldn't save him because I wasn't fast enough." His hands raised, crying now, muscles clenched hard just to keep himself upright. “Because of these." He could feel his husband's gaze like a heavy hand lying softly on the crimson fabric of his vest.  
“So you're here because you feel like you failed and I'm the only one able to free you from something holding you back."  
The double meaning in those words was so obvious it hurt, but Albus could only nod shortly, curtly.  
“My students need me and I'm useless in protecting them while clad in chains. You could do a lot of good with breaking these, Gellert." And there it was again, that hidden anger, clouded by something entirely else that Albus wasn't able to decipher in this state.  
“You think you deserve this monstrosity? The pain, the punishment? But one feeble young life flickers out under your watchful eye and you come to me again, after decades of silence, making me think I'd have you back after all. You're a cruel man, Albus."  
“As are you. But never to me, not once, not ever."

In the silence that followed, Gellert's heavy steps echoed from the walls of his beautifully decorated living room. It didn't really seem lived-in, nearly blank with cleanliness, as if he spent more time out in the world than here, at home. Albus kept his eyes trained down on the dark wooden floor and felt like he might have overstepped, making Gellert help him, forcing his hand by memories instead of promises. He was the beggar here, down to his last option before the storm of the next year would cost him his place in Hogwarts. Gellert must have loved having him in such dire a situation, seeing him defeated without moving a finger.  
“Accio", Gellert whispered with an outstretched hand and through the door flew a deep blue coat, flapping as if adorned with wings.  
“If you think you're here because of your children, at my mercy..." Words followed touch, crystal clear honesty was trailed by a growing softness.  
“For the greater good", Albus replied without voice and willed himself not to give in to a kiss that he had longed for so. A smile got caught between them, Gellert rubbed tiny circles into his hands and stepped back. With a piercing stare, he threw his coat over his dressing gown as if he was about to go on a journey instead of to the garden behind the house.  
“Keep telling yourself that, darling."

They walked out the back door hand in hand, if only so Albus wouldn’t succumb to his screaming subconsciousness, he supposed. The metal bands burned into his wrists as his intent to be freed (by Gellert, of all people, what was he thinking?) overruled his moral compass with Ariana as his one true north. Would she have forgiven him, for giving in, for wanting to be able to sleep, for looking into the mirror and not finding only one half of a whole?  
Surrounded by trees older than the house itself, untouched by the glow of Vienna at night and bathed in moonlight instead, he came to a halt as Gellert turned around with the Elder wand in hand. Albus didn’t even flinch. They were hurting each other every day, every waking and sleeping second day and night, spells had always been only a means to an end to them. Wordlessly he rose his arms before him and pushed his sleeves back, palms up, and something in Gellert’s calculating eyes lit up like a bonfire. For only that moment, the world stopped turning and Albus accepted, in a split-second decision, the heavy consequences of his egoistic wish to be free.  
“Any rituals that I should be aware of? What did they use, Celtic bonding rites? A marriage vow to the ministry itself, perhaps? The minister?” Eyes not straying from Gellert’s beautiful face even once, he shook his head no.  
“They were put in place without a ritual, so brute force should do the trick, but I would be grateful if you spared my veins in the process.” And there it was again, the smile that he would die for, one day, surely.  
“To paint such a nicely cut shirt red with your blood? We’re better than that, aren’t we?”  
Albus huffed.  
“Just do it, Morgana’s sake. Stop playing with me, it _hurts_.” Which pain exactly he referred to, neither of them had to know just now. The first whipping slash of raw magic sent him to his knees, the impact thrumming through his tired body into his weary mind, but Albus didn’t lower his head. Arms up, well aware how all of this must have looked, he didn’t allow himself so much as a tremble of nerves. “Free me, Gellert.”

It felt as if he had an obscurus contained within the boundaries of his very skin, carried it next to his core all his life, or maybe he had caught it like a contagion the moment Ariana’s dead body had hit the dusty floor all those years ago. Being at the wrong end of Gellert’s wand was nothing he wished even his greatest enemy, maybe except for the British minister himself. That thought carried him through the whole process. That narrow-minded stare, the satisfaction upon the decision of clasping cold metal around his wrists through an old student of his, catching him with his guards down in his own classroom… He clenched his teeth over a litany of _it hurts it hurts it hurts_ flooding his mind, all the while with his face turned upwards to the stars. If Gellert killed him now, on accident, because neither of them was able to end their life so terribly gone wrong respectively, he wanted to go on to the next one under the unpredictable pattern of a million suns, connected by the terribly familiar silver lightning of his husband. Those chains that were supposed to hold Albus Dumbledore in check began to smoke, first, then the very material that they were made of bled the magic of some Auror who created them. His overloading mind supplied him with the corresponding theory of the combination of metal and magic, which was a recipe for disaster on its own. Something akin to a dagger straight to the heart shot through him and he heard Gellert hiss with it, angry as a snake and twice as deadly.  
“I’m hurting you. I shouldn’t, I can’t-“

“Go on”, Albus spat in cramps and heaved a dry sob, shocked by how fast his chin sank onto the base of his throat. The blood troth, their vow never to purposely hurt each other without consent burned a diamond-shaped hole into three layers of clothing and still, he turned his head upwards again. Gellert stood frozen against the night sky, eyes wide with a fear that looked rather ugly on him. “If you love me still, Gellert, you will go on. Free me, I know you can. Only you, understood?” And if there wasn’t a whole world of different meanings waiting in those words to be discovered… Gellert schooled his expression into a hard mask and took a deep breath. Sweat covered his forehead in a thin layer, shining with the glowing smoke of those dreaded instruments.  
“I’m going to-“ A whip, soundless Latin words falling from his lips, that angry snarl again. “- kill each and every one of them –“ A shape like lightning, silver fading into blue, into flames.  
“- for doing this to us. There, got it, hold on, Albus, I’ve got you.”  
“We don’t have much longer until some British Auror hunts my scent to your sanctuary, I’m afraid”, Albus coughed through the urge of screaming, an offended laugh was his reward and with a final crack, the chains binding his magic broke and shattered. His core could do nothing but lash out, only constrained by the promise never to hurt its other half. Albus was consumed by something so blue, so frighteningly bright that he had to close his eyes, but the only spot on his body that was still in pain were his burned wrists. All strength left him, sucked dry by weeks of sustaining an enchantment that went against his very nature as a magical human being.

He was caught before he could hit the ground, of course.

For a long time afterwards, he drifted. Healing took its toll on his physical manifestation in this world, even though a magical touch so familiar he felt like crying in his feverlike dreams washed over him in a gentle rhythm. He was placed on the softest silk, covered by velvet, ruined layers of his trademark suit (protection, he thought in a fleeting moment and held onto the hand steadying him) stripped away to let the blue sparks embedded in his very blood do the rest of the work. The smell of dittany wormed itself into his sleep, ground into citrus scent and bee’s wax, melting time. A great mind lingered on the edges of his own, sometimes dove too deep into his consciousness for comfort, and still they clung as if separated by a life that got twisted into something so wrong, so agonizing, fate itself couldn’t have thought of it.  
“Don’t strain him, Sir”, a voice too young to not have been in his care once said, very far away, and Albus stirred. He wouldn’t have a student see him in such a state. But instead of lifting, of rising from the fog, a blanket settled over his mind and told him to rest. Pink, he thought. A very light pink, sometimes shot through by grey worries and something deeper, laced with fear.  
“I haven’t waited for decades to lose him now, Miss Goldstein. He’s resisting me, even now, and never in our lifetime has he done so when in my care.”  
“His shields are strong, he must have gotten used to keep them up at night instead of just emptying his mind. How exhausting… This is Albus Dumbledore, yes?”  
A pause, a tug at his iron protections, a sigh. Gone, now.  
“Who else would I let into my home?”  
_Into your bed, too, you pompous idiot._  
“Me, Sir.” The most quiet snarl, laced by a silent amusement that would never see the light of day.  
“Can you heal him or not? Yes or no, Miss Goldstein, I’m getting impatient here and there still are many heads to kick off their soft necks.”  
A tiny smile, pink again, then turning away. Albus’ hands twitched.  
“Oh, he’s done that all for himself just now, Sir. You won’t lose him to exhaustion, at least, but you have to be very careful with him. If he had to keep his guard up at all time… What would you do with a new pet that you adopted from an abusive owner? Urge it to stop biting?”

“Biscuits”, he rasped and turned his head to the right, where Gellert stood with clenched hands, accompanied by a tall, thin woman clad in a dark rosé and adorned by wild blonde curls. Not a student of his, then, he would have remembered a natural Legilimens for sure. Instead of being startled, she granted him a strained smile that spoke of the underlying fear that she hid so well. In a flash, Gellert was at his side. He didn’t have to voice it out loud to let Mrs. Goldstein know that she was dismissed.  
Their hands found one another without looking, silver and blue sparks mixed, mingled, and Albus felt like eighteen all over again. His control was slipping, the tight hold on his magic too short to keep it up for more than mere minutes. Without voice, without words he drew their interlinked fingers over his heart and his lids slipped, engulfing his sight in darkness. The whizzing, fizzing beauty between them was enough to feel home, and as much as he wanted to hate himself for it, he found that he couldn’t.

“There’s a phoenix sitting in my living room, refusing to communicate with me properly. Might that be the stubborn creature that I gave to you for your birthday back in the day?”, Gellert asked with a hard pulse in a conversational chatter that didn’t quite fit him and Albus had to bite back a laugh. The shaking of his shoulders hurt.  
“Maybe”, he mumbled and let the intended words die on his tongue. They were better than this, confined to the rules of a language that wasn’t born to one of them. All it took was an open mind and the trust of a lifetime they never had to weave the tendrils of his very being into Gellert’s waiting embrace, silver where Fawkes was golden, razor-sharp, ready to cut out everyone and the world, but still, no hurt came to him. Relief washed over him accompanied by a shuddering breath that wasn’t his own, words drifted away with the sea that was Gellert’s mind. On the shore, they met in the intimately familiar moonlit blue of the waves that didn’t exist without Albus there to move them, drawing runes of old into the sand underneath, embedding a smile into skin like seaweed. Gellert always smelt a bit like it, like salt and a never ending taking as the tides tended to do. Perhaps Durmstrang had left its influence on his soul after all, sitting upon its high throne on deadly cliffs, tested day and night by the storms of the north.  
An embrace tightened around his tired body, all the tighter in his mind. Waves lapped gently against his naked feet, washing away never spoken words.  
This. This was home. To rid himself of Gellert Grindelwald would have meant to tear his own core out of those depths and that, Albus was simply incapable of.

Waking up fully took more than he could do right now, not ready to face the world just yet. The silver sea kept him safe at the shore, lest he drowned in it, and slowly, gently, drew back with the falling tide to rise another time. With those last parting touches, Albus pleaded Gellert not to kill anybody of importance yet and to spare Hogwarts while it was without its best defender. Children resided behind its thick walls that he would have taken in as his own within a heartbeat, innocent children worthy of protection that he could no longer grant them.  
Albus redirected his gaze to the ceiling that seemed very far away. No enchantment made it sparkle or match the sky or something the like, instead, heavy curtains separated the four poster bed from the chilly room. It reminded him of the dorms in Hogwarts, only a lot lonelier. How could he have taken such a risk just for himself? In the end, he had been too weak not to come to Gellert at last, it seemed. And still… He could not regret to hold onto Gellert’s calloused hands to leave his mind wide open and therefore also forbidding Gellert to just up and go. A tug of power, as ever, as always. Their eyes met again, not once wavering in his direct gaze when he needed words again to reach his husband. Gellert shook his head with a hard line around his lips that betrayed the gentleness of his mismatched eyes, mentally drawing back enough to concentrate on speaking.  
“To give in to do what is right I count as the greatest strength in the world, not weakness. You didn’t have to hurry through half of Europe, ducked into the shadows, but considering the circumstances… I promise that no harm will come to your students, not from me, at least.” They traded a smile with raised eyebrows, Albus coughed and turned his head briefly away for it.  
“You”, he replied at last, simply, and maybe that was the one right thing to say to a man like Gellert Grindelwald. They knew each other far too well not to hear all the unspoken implications, the layers in between, not yet ready to become accomplished truths.

Gellert rose from the bed, their fingers slipped apart and in front of his heart, there dangled their vow. In another situation, Albus would have been angry, downright upset at him taking it, but with that mark maybe forever burned into his own skin, he understood.  
“We’re still in Vienna, but I have to do a day’s trip to Prague. I cannot ignore what keeping your head down has done to you, there has to be an answer. You’ll have me back before midnight.” A deep sigh got caught between Albus’ lips and he turned onto his side fully, now, to sleep instead of drifting between waking and falling into death’s waiting arms.  
“I certainly hope so.” He wanted to ask if he would have a very inconvenient mess to deal with, afterwards, before the realisation hit him that he wouldn’t be doing a lot of meddling and playing their big chess game against each other for any time coming. That spike of ice-hard fear melted only under a last touch to his mind that sought to sooth, not to enchant, and Albus closed his eyes once more.

That Gellert hesitated once out the door he didn’t see, of course, as well as the box full of broken chains that he carried. A quick movement with the hands of a man known to conduct a legion of puppets and a dozen wards were applied, unbreakable from the outside by anyone but himself. Albus also missed the placing of said box in the dead hands of the Head Auror of Wizarding Great Britain, found still as a mouse the next day, choked on an irreversible poison in his own office.  
Revenge was to be taken. New plans were to be made. And never again would Gellert Grindelwald let the thrice damned Ministry forget whom his husband belonged to.


End file.
